Bullies and Appeasers

Recently, President Bush made a few derogatory remarks about appeasers while addressing Israel’s governing body, the Knesset. Over there, his comments earned him a nice round of applause, while over here, Barack Obama took umbrage.

A spokesperson for the administration was quick to point out that, although no names were mentioned, Bush had been referring to -- and the Israelis understood him to be referring to -- America’s foremost ambassador of bad will, Jimmy Carter. After all, just a few weeks earlier, Carter had been given the cold shoulder by the Israelis when he was in the Middle East for a meet-and-greet with his chums in Hamas.

Well, I hate like the dickens to question the word of an official spokesperson, but if Bush didn’t have Obama in mind, he should have. Obama, after all, has been very candid about his intention to meet with Muslim terrorists if and when he becomes the commander-in-chief. Clearly, he thinks he can charm them as easily as he charms America’s hopelessly naïve college students.

Appeasers, I should point out, aren’t evil. After all, they want to be peacemakers. They are brimming over with good intentions. But we all know what the road to Hell is paved with, and it’s not tar or concrete.

Appeasers are terminally gullible and, at the same time, unbelievably egotistical. When quite soon after Neville Chamberlain ceded Czechoslovakia to Germany, Nazi tanks predictably rolled into Poland, Idaho’s Sen. William Borah suggested that he could have prevented that unfortunate turn of events if only he had had a chance to talk to Adolf Hitler.

People such as Obama and Joe Biden are always going on about how everyone in the world hates America because Bush invaded Iraq. What they neglect to mention is just who they have in mind. For one thing, several other nations signed on for the invasion, including Italy, Denmark, El Salvador, South Korea, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, the Netherlands and Japan. It’s true that Russia, China, France and Germany, stood in opposition, but that’s mainly because they all had sweetheart oil deals with Saddam Hussein, and didn’t wish to see their cheap oil supply jeopardized. However, in the past few years, there have been leadership changes in Germany and France, and unlike Francois Mitterand and Gerhard Schroder, both Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are very friendly allies of the United States.